AN :
The story needs more power stones...
In the Game of Stones, you either win or you wait. The more Power Stones you offer, the faster the chapters come.
...
( Rhaegar Targaryen POV )
He was flying over Old Valyria, the glimmering topless towers of lacquered red stone reached high into the sky above the smoking mouths of the Fourteen Flames.
Around each of their great maws lay the palaces of the Dragonlords, great and glorious. From their gates spilled forth the treasures of a thousand kingdoms, all laid low by the Dragonlords and their steeds. For five thousand years the Dragonlords ruled as living gods over sky, sea, and land, for none could oppose them.
Rhaegar marveled at their architecture, their brilliance and their mystical powers as he flew above them, the wind whipping through his hair.
Then came a crack, a distant trumpet of terror and the world began to shake, and he thought that this vision would show him the Doom.
He was right, but it was not the doom he expected. On the distant horizon, to the east, there rose a great fog of darkness, and where it passed men shriveled away to bones and plants dried to ashes and blew away in the wind, a wave of death, a terrible plague of blackened mist. In the north, another great darkness, a terrible blizzard of ice and snow that grew and grew until it swallowed the narrow sea in it's frozen grip, and from the north and the east the shadows of death set upon the shores of Valyria.
Then from the Fourteen sisters, three great dragons rose up to fight the terrible darkness.
The first was Red with ruby scales, glowing with the fires of the volcanos below. It went to fight the fog of death and wrestled with a great cat made of shadows. Mountains broke in their path, Islands sank and trembled, and the world quaked.
The Second was Black as the night with scales of onyx and dragonglass. It grew and grew to an enormous size, flying above Rhaegar's head. He saw that it was even larger than Balerion of old, and its wingbeats cast a great shadow as it shattered the Ice from the ocean with a sweep of its tail, and set upon the terrible blizzard with a hurricane in its wings, beating great winds to drive the storm back.
The Third was white as the clouds and thin as a whip, with scales gleaming of ivory and marble, it turned a single red eye to Rhaegar and he tasted the frost upon its breath-
The Prince awoke in a fitful sweat, his heart pounding in his chest as his fingers gripped for blankets he had long cast off in his tumultuous dreaming. The cold wind rolled in off the Blackwater through his open window as he sat up from his bed, bitter against his skin.
Rhaegar's hair fell down over his face like a vale, obscuring his room, but the red eye of that white dragon still held him entranced, it had glimmered like all the force of love and power and the magic of Old Valyria. The Red Dragon had been born of volcanic fury, of fire and death, the Black had been titanic, full of power and might, but the white dragon spoke to him of higher mysteries, of destiny and magic.
And of visions of the future.
Rhaegar felt a shudder run through him as if the touch of the stranger himself was on his shoulder. That had been no ordinary dream.
Rhaegar climbed from his bed, pulling his hair out of his face as he stood barefoot on the cold stone floor of the red keep, his eyes turning towards the windows as he began to pace. 'Dragon dream…' the thought felt strange in his mind. It was not the first time he had felt whispers, flashes of some foreboding fate, but never had they been so clear, so obviously more than just a flight of imagination. Never had they been so obviously a Dragon Dream.
The prince frowned as he made his way out past the fluttering curtains onto his balcony, his eyes gazing out over the blackwater bay towards Dragonstone, the true home castle of the Targaryens.
He had been in this damn city too long, been near his father for too long.
His father dreamed too, he knew, far more frequently, and far more deeply than Rhaegar ever had. Aerys dreamed of fire and death, of traitors in the dark and licking green flames. He had spoken of it when Rhaegar was a boy and had first asked about dragon dreams. It wasn't a gift, or a curse, that every Targaryen received, but it seemed that it had passed from his father to him. Fitting, he supposed, given the place of his birth.
Rhaegar flexed his hand, he had been flying above Valyria in the dream, and flying not on the back of a dragon, no, it had felt as if he had wings himself. The thought brought to mind the ruins of Summerhall, where his great-grandfather had died, died on the day of his birth. Died using sorcery and wildfire in a failed attempt to bring dragons to life.
'Perhaps a dragon really was born that day…' Rhaegar looked out over the Blackwater and imagined flying, soaring from his perch, it seemed all too easy in his mind, but his better reason stopped it. Oftentimes the dragon dreams were more metaphor than reality, so in that case, perhaps the other dragons were people also? Targaryens born and destined to face a great tragedy?
He stroked his chin gently, pondering the future he had foreseen, or perhaps the past. The Valyrian Freehold had been at its height in his dream, not the scorched wreck that it was now. Still, that too could be simply metaphor. Perhaps the dragons were meant to spring forth from Valyrian blood, his blood, or that of the Velaryons. Or perhaps even little Viserys' line. There was no telling what exactly the truth might be, or how it might come about.
Rhaegar breathed in deeply of the night air, then exhaled, half hoping he might breathe fire from his nostrils.
No such luck, besides the dream itself, no magic answered him, he was simply a man, a prince, alone on a balcony in the cold.
He hurried back inside and shut the door, going to light a fire in the corner of the room to warm himself. He could call on a servant, but he didn't want to be disturbed from his thoughts. The dragon had three heads, there was red, white, and black.
What did the colors mean? Were they simply representative of breeds of dragon, or of breeds of men? Red was the Targaryen color, but Aegon the Conqueror had ridden a black dragon, but the black dragon could also be a Blackfyre, though that line was dead as far as Rhaegar knew. White was not a color he knew any dragon to be, save perhaps for Quicksilver, the dragon of Prince Aegon from the Dance. Stranger still, the dragon's breath had felt cold, Icy…
Rhaegar rubbed at his forehead in an attempt to clear his thoughts, though it didn't work particularly well. There were simply too many things he didn't know. Too much about magic that no living man truly understood since the doom. It was a terrible thing to be forced to guess in such a manner, instead of knowing for certain what his vision meant. He could tell though, could see that there were too great fearsome foes that the three dragons, whatever their nature, would have to face.
There was the ice from the north and the fog of death from the east. The Ice from the north might be some terror from beyond the wall, or it could be a symbol for the armies of the north under House Stark, he knew their Valyrian sword was named Ice… He didn't know quite what the fog of death might be, perhaps the result of some terrible Essosi sorcery, or some demon like the black goat that was worshipped in Qohor. Rhaegar would have to seek the answer to that riddle when he got the time.
This entire vision was just what he needed right now. With his father angry at him and the King's tourney joust tomorrow, it seemed that everything in the world was a mess. He gazed out from between his fingers at the harp that sat against his wall.
To think that this had all gone so poorly because of the one knight at the feast. Princess Elia had been charming and beautiful, and he had hoped that he might be able to woo her, to bring her to his side and marry her quickly. That would avoid the entire debacle with his father's plans in Essos, and his refusal to find Rhaegar a wife more quickly. Only things had not gone so smoothly. His father was angry with him, furious even, for daring to think that he might sully his blood with a Dornish woman.
Aerys had banned him from watching the Prince's tournament, and nearly banned him from the joust as well, though Rhaegar dearly hoped to win it. He had trained for years now, this was to be his chance to lay aside his bookish past and prove to the realm that he was a warrior now, a knight to be respected and feared. His father had seen sense eventually, at least enough to let him joust.
It was all made worse because Princess Elia was apparently already betrothed. If it had been some minor house from Dorne that would not have been a problem for Rhaegar, but to Lord Tywin Lannister's son? No, that was a lion even Rhaegar wouldn't poke, not until the iron throne was firmly beneath him, and even then not without great care.
Much as Elia appealed to him, with her raven hair and burgundy lips, he dared not choose a fight against the man who had sunk his claws into King's Landing so deeply, the richest man in Westeros and by rumor the most ruthless.
Rhaegar was no fool. That was not a fight he wanted, not unless he had no other choice. So in the end the entire thing had been for nothing. He could not, would not pursue Elia further and take a chance with that man.
He tapped his fingers on his thigh as he say back down on his bed. He could sit and wait for his father to find him some Essosi woman, but what would that do for him in the end? He could not simply wait for time to pass him by. If the dragons in his vision were his children, as he thought they might be… if his son was the Prince that was promised, how long could Rhaegar choose to wait?
Not as long as his father would take.
The Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms grimaced as he felt icy resolve take hold of his heart.
'After the Joust…' the Prince thought to himself. 'After the joust, I will speak to father.'
Rhaegar Targaryen clenched his fist.
'After the joust.'
...
Chronicle of the Targaryen Dynasty in the Seven Kingdoms
Maester Willem
276 AC- Sixth Moon, the Longest day of the year.
The King's Tourney in celebration of Prince Viserys' birth comes to a climax in a joust between Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Ser Arthur Dayne. They make six passes at each other, each breaking three lances in the process, before riding again with swords drawn.
The Sword of Morning ultimately defeated the Prince as his greatsword, Dawn, cut through Prince Rhaegar's arming sword three inches above the crossguard, and the Prince yielded to his Kingsguard with good dignity.
Afterward, a feast was held to celebrate the Triumph of Ser Arthur Dayne and the general results of the Tourney. Lord Jon Connington won the melee and Ser Anders Yronwood won the Horse Race, while Ser Tanton Fossoway, newly knighted, won the Prince's Tourney.
Neither King Aerys nor Prince Rhaegar attended the feast. Queen Rhaella was also absent, though King Aerys did appear to make a speech before the departing nobles on the following day, for which he appeared to be in good spirits.
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